Telecommunication terminals (or terminal blocks) are typically used in the telecommunications industry to connect multiple wire pairs, for example, to connect telephone service wires to telephone company distribution cables. Such terminal blocks typically connect from 2 to 50 individual service wire pairs to the distribution cable that may have several thousand-wire pairs. Generally, the terminal block is spliced to the distribution cable through a splicing cable or stub cable that forms part of the telecommunication terminal or terminal block. The customer service wires are then connected to the telecommunication terminal or terminal block through some type of terminal, which, ideally, enables the service wires to be easily connected, disconnected and reconnected on site.
In the telecommunications industry, a large number of wires connect the various component of the system through the terminal block. To organize the wires, some telecommunications operators use color-coding on the wire jackets based on signal type, and channel number or program content. For example, telephone-wiring applications use a uniform scheme for dealing with a large number of wires for the telephone industry. The scheme uses two color codes—one for large numbers of wires organized in pairs and the other for smaller numbers of wires that also can be organized in pairs. For large number of wires, each pair is assigned a two-color code. The colors are selected from two groups of five, resulting in what is called a binder-group of 25 pairs. The colors used for a group are white, red, black, yellow and violet. The colors used for “pairs within a group” are blue, orange, green, brown and slate. Each pair must have a unique color combination. One wire within each pair has a solid background of its group color and stripes of the “pair within the group” color; the second wire has the colors reversed. Cables with more than 25 pairs of wires are constructed from 25-pair groups.
Alternatively, for small wiring groups, such as wires for an individual telephone station or terminal, a second color-code scheme can be used. The alternate color uses the first three pairs of the standard color code (white-blue, blue-white, and so on) or alternatively can use the six alternate color wires. Originally, telecommunications terminals were optimized for use with copper drop wires. Through an evolutionary process, a plurality of different wire sizes and kinds of wire have been employed to connect the subscriber to the phone company. The gauges can vary from 18½ to 26 AWG gauge copper based wires some of which may have steel cores. However, most common copper wires are between about 19-24 AWG gauge.
Recently, however, traditional copper wires are being replaced with optical fibers (i.e., fiber), instead of copper wires. For example, optical fibers can be used by a telecommunication company to transmit telephone signals, Internet communication, and/or cable television signals. In the past, due to difficulties including lack of infrastructure development within cities, and the complexity and expensive of fiber optic system, fiber-optic communication systems have primarily been installed in long-distance applications, where they can be used to their full transmission capacity, and offsetting the increased cost.
However, it can be appreciated that since many of these difficulties are starting to be overcome, optical fibers are being used as a medium for telecommunication and networking, and especially for long-distance communications. One advantage of optical fibers is that light propagates through the fiber with little attenuation compared to electrical cables, which allows long distances to be spanned with few repeaters. Additionally, the light signals propagating in the fiber can be modulated at rates as high as 40 Gb/s (Gigabits per second), such that each fiber can carry several independent channels, each by a different wavelength of light (wavelength-division multiplexing). In addition, over short distances, such as networking within a building, optical fiber can save space in cable ducts because a single fiber can carry much more data than a single electrical cable. It can be appreciated that optical fibers are also immune to electrical interference, which prevents cross-talk between signals in different cables and pickup of environmental noise. In addition, because fiber cables are non-electrical, fiber cables can bridge very high electrical potential differences and can be used in environments where explosive fumes are present, without danger.
Accordingly, what is needed is a telecommunication terminal, which incorporates a sealing gland system, which is essentially tool-less, such that a field technician does not require anything more than a screw driver and/or wrench.